mercredi 15 février 2017

obscure MMA facts

– Art Jimmerson has fought four known MMA fighters/kickboxers in his career: Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Royce Gracie, William Knorr, and Arthur Williams. Out of the group, he only managed to defeat Knorr.

– Not counting Oleg Taktarov’s worked nine second guillotine choke victory over Anthony Macias at UFC 6, the record for the fastest UFC submission is tied between Joe Charles (Armbar over Kevin Rosier at UFC 4) and Justin Martin (Ankle lock over Eric Martin at UFC 12) at fourteen seconds.

– At least two future sexual offenders were involved with UFC 1: Pat Smith (Sexual assault on a child in 1999) and John Nimock (Listed as the “Wrestling Consultant” in the credits. Apparently was a high school wrestling coach who was arrested in 2000 after exposing children to pornography and wrestling with them in their underwear).

– Jonathan Wiezorek entered his UFC 47 bout against Wade Shipp with a broken back and won. Because he had refused to tell the promoters of his situation in order to prevent the fight from being scrapped, however, he ended up not being invited back to fight again because they thought his performance was awful.

– Marcus Marriott Lee was a Pagua stylist and 2-2-0 boxer who was once slated to fight in the main draw of UFC 6. Had he competed that night, he would’ve been the first fighter in UFC history to come out of the UK. While bouncing at a nightclub in 2005, he killed an unruly patron with a single punch and was jailed for three years after being convicted of manslaughter.

– Ring announcer Rich Goins was forced to part ways with the UFC after contracting scabies from Dan Severn following sexual intercourse.

– Although pure boxers Art Jimmerson, Melton Bowen, and Sam Adkins went down relatively quickly in their UFC forays, 13-3-0 Latvian cruiser/heavyweight Yuri Vaulin managed to last the full fifteen minute round against 6th degree BJJ blackbelt and Marco Ruas student Joe Moreira. In boxing, Vaulin was most famous for giving Tommy Morrison a tough fight before succumbing to the future WBO champion’s body blows. At UFC 14, Moereira rested in the mount position for the entire duration of the fight and initiated zero offense.

The Brazilian won the decision but was somehow diagnosed with a concussion before his tournament finale with Olympic gold medalist wrestler Kevin Jackson. It’s unclear if Moreira had lied about his injury to avoid the next fight, if he had entered the tournament with a concussion in the first place, or if Vaulin had used telekinesis to pop a vein inside the Brazilian’s head. Either way, the intriguing clash between a world-class wrestler and BJJ player was scrapped and Jackson fought Tony Fryklund instead.

– Joel Sutton, a Praying Mantis kung-fu fighter, earned a 2-0-0 UFC record after defeating Aikidoka Jack McLaughlin in UFC 6 and pro-wrestler/Dan Severn sparring partner Geza Kalman in UFC 7. He was perhaps the last big hope for the traditional martial arts community to win an event, but never ended up fighting in the main draw of a tournament. In his next four fights outside of the UFC, he lost every time in less than two minutes. He finished his career with a draw in 1999.

– Geza Kalman was a Canadian professional wrestler who had initially contacted Dan Severn to learn some shootfighting holds to incorporate into his performance style. After becoming his sparring partner, however, he ended up taking an offer to fight as a UFC tournament alternate and accumulated a 1-1-0 record in the promotion. His last professional MMA fight was in 2008.

– Pressure point stylist Ryan Parker was perhaps the first MMA fighter to actively participate in internet discussions regarding himself. Prior to his UFC 7 loss to Remco Pardoel, he spent months and months discussing the intricacies of his style and how he could use Chi to win a fight. The application video he sent to the UFC promoters featured him enduring strikes to his groin and throat without exhibiting pain, much like the Combat Kiai people we see nowadays. Against the Dutchman, he put up very little fight and was choked out easily.

– The Lions Den fighter who had initially sent in an application for UFC 1 was Ken Shamrock’s student Scott Bessac. He eventually got into the UFC two years later after accumulating a 3-4-0 record in Pancrase.

– Nail trimming became standard pre-fight before every UFC event after Trent Jenkins cut Jason DeLucia’s face with his toenail in UFC 1. That’s the grand contribution to the sport from modern MMA’s most mysterious pioneer. Last I heard he was working for the Denver Nuggets. Somebody, please track him down.

Interesting to note that, despite never having won an MMA match, he did dominate KOTC veteran Tyson Johnson to a draw in a cage-boxing match at the Bas Rutten Invitational.

– Zak Jensen killed a man with his bare hands prior to TUF 10 and ejaculated on the shower floor during the course of the show. Wes Sims stepped in his semen. This is a truthful entry.

– Roger Moore beat up Lee Marvin during the filming of Shout at the Devil.

– Jose Canseco was once slated to fight Rodney King in a Celebrity Boxing match. Before he died, King accumulated a 2-0-0 Celebrity Boxing record, one victory of which came against a disgraced ex-police officer.

I’m talking about the black dude who got beat up, by the way, not the Crazy Monkey guy.

– Royce Gracie’s UFC 1 victory dinner was some Ritz crackers and apple juice he got from a 7-11.

– Relson Gracie was accused of repeatedly exposing himself to Royce’s opponents before walk-ins in order to disrupt their mental games.

– Mike Bernardo was, of course, a K-1 legend who had died in 2012. Another prominent martial artist from the 90’s, however, shared his name and caused quite a bit of confusion back in the day. Stunt man Michael Bernardo starred in Shootfighter: Fight to the Death alongside Bolo Yeung and played Turbo in WMAC Masters. Because their respective careers both took off sometime around 1995, people sometimes expected to see Turbo Bernardo fighting in K-1.

– Andy Anderson and Paul Herrera actually got into a bar fight in Japan, which Anderson won. Herrera was one of Tank Abbott’s cronies, but Abbott let his friend take his lumps without retribution because he had started it.

– Harold Howard almost knocked himself out walking into a piece of lighting equipment prior to his fight with Steve Jennum.

– Steve Jennum was supposed to fight Ken Shamrock in the semi-finals of UFC 3, but Felix Lee Mitchell got put in instead when the promoters couldn’t find Jennum in the crowd. Jennum thought he had fucked up his only opportunity, but the lucky bastard hit the jackpot twice that night.

– Felix Lee Mitchell’s was advertised in the UFC 3 trailers as “America’s Toughest Prison Warden.” His favorite tactic was reaching into his opponent’s cup and banging on his testicles. He did that to Ken Shamrock and also appeared to try it against Judoka Robert Lalonde. All he managed to achieve with Lalonde, however, was exposing his buttocks and prompting catcalls from female members of the IFC audience. This is a truthful entry.

– Muhammad Ali was once seriously slated to fight Wilt Chamberlain.

– Jim Brown once expressed interest in fighting Ali, but was deterred after the champion privately schooled him in a light sparring match at a park.

– Douglas Dedge, the victim of MMA’s first fatality, seemed to base his entire fighting strategy around strangling his opponents with his handwraps. He tried doing that to Sean Brockmole in his lone amateur fight and Yevegeni Zolotarev in his fateful last match.

– Big John McCarthy never got fight in UFC 1 like he wanted, but he did school Art Jimmerson in an impromptu sparring match before the event.

– One of the earliest fights between a prominent boxer and mixed martial artist occurred in 1987. Former contender and Muhammad Ali opponent Alfredo Evangelista defeated future Pancrase pioneer and Bas Rutten cornerman Andre van den Oetelaar by TKO in five rounds.

– Before Butterbean and Roy Nelson were the “People’s Champions,” overweight former salesman Claude “Humphrey” McBride found success as a fighter in heavyweight boxing’s golden era. Garbed in polka-dot trunks and sporting a shaved head, McBride accumulated a 36-8-0 record in the 1970’s with victories over former contenders Terry Daniels and Henry Hank.

– The Dog Brothers petitioned the UFC in the 90’s to host stick fights, but were deemed to extreme for the organization.

– Rudy Eugene, the Miami Cannibal, was once knocked out in a street fight by former heavyweight boxing fringe contender and UFC 4 veteran Melton Bowen. Bowen once held the title of World Boxing Federation Intercontinental Heavyweight Champion, a belt later won by former WBC titleist Oliver McCall.

– In addition to having 300+ recorded fights in MMA, Travis Fulton has also fought in over 50 boxing matches and at least 10 kickboxing bouts.

– The Zuffa Myth is the commonly-referenced misconception that Dana White and the Fertitta brothers were responsible for drafting the modern Unified Rules and changing MMA from an unregulated bloodbath into a legitimate sport. In reality, the vast majority of the rules utilized in the UFC were implemented by the franchise’s original owners, SEG. The Unified Rules were implemented during SEG’s tenure. Chuck Liddell actually propagated the myth in his own biography, despite the fact that he should’ve known better due to having fought in the UFC before the promotion was sold.

Before the Zuffa Myth, interestingly, there was the SEG Myth. Semaphore Entertainment Group president Bob Meyrowitz was not the one who came up with the idea for the UFC, but he sure took the credit for it after the event became a groundbreaking PPV smash. Even while Art Davie, the UFC’s real co-founder, was still under his employment, he still insisted on having dreamt up the idea for a style vs. style cage tournament. Funnily enough, this myth was propagated by Ken Shamrock in his biography.